Mightier Than the Sword
by Wynja2007
Summary: While tracking the creature Gollum, Aragorn gets caught up in local politics... This story placed joint first for the Teitho Challenge: Weather and could be read as a prequel to 'Lindir's Tale'


**Mightier Than the Sword**

**Summary:**

While tracking the creature Gollum, Aragorn is caught up in local politics…

It had felt good to be out of the rain, at first.

A long, cold drizzle had sat over him and his horse all the way down through North Ithilien. It had eased for a while as he passed through South Ithilien, keeping to the fringes of the Ephel Duath, eased enough for him to feel merely damp, rather than soaked through, and even though it was allegedly summer, the looming darkness had made strange the seasons, so what should have been a pleasant enough shower was become this constant, permeating, miserable mizzle.

Brought up in Rivendell amongst the elves, and then riding out far and wide with the Rangers of the north, he had learned to be hardy early on. But that didn't mean he had to like the sensation of cold, wet rain rivuletting its way down the back of his neck, dripping off his nose and running into his eyes.

He'd felt more sorry for his horse, though.

It had come to him as a refugee, found in the wilds of the mountains, its rider dead and its mane singed and scorched so that the only thing to do, once he'd got it home, was to cut the damaged strands out, so now he was riding on a mount with a bald patch on its neck and practically no mane and so it, too had suffered in the wet.

As persistent as the precipitation had been, he woke from his brief, snatched rest one twilight to find the rain had stopped and the wind had changed, and next day he had ridden on southwards (always southwards) with renewed hope for better weather.

It was, in truth, the only thing he felt he could be hopeful for; his quest had seemed more than usually pointless of late.

How many years had it been, now? Fifteen, sixteen…?

Longer than that; bordering on eighteen.

Almost two decades spent in the sporadic search for this sad and despicable creature.

Years which could have been put to much better use…

He would be further south, soon, than he had ever been, and he wondered at it, for the creature was not known for its love of the sunlight or the heat; in that he supposed the wet and dismal weather had played its part. Certainly something had turned it away from its path back north, something had led it here, slinking along in the dead of night, shunning even the moon.

The last sighting he'd had of the creature had been more than a month ago, a hiss and a slither and a glimpse of a pale, slimy foot on the edge of Dagorlad. Then three weeks of rain and mud and mire and mizzle, as if the very skies were collaborating with Gollum to conceal his tracks.

Even so, his keen eyes and Ranger-honed perceptions had made it possible for him to ride from guess to clue to hint to the occasional piece of evidence which was enough to keep him on the trail.

And then the rain had stopped, and his clothes had dried, and his horse had dried, its hide pungent as it did so, and he had continued riding south.

'Harondor, a debatable and detestable land', some maps said. The more honest, the more circumspect, at least. But most of the maps Aragorn had seen called the region 'South Gondor'. While the ownership of the land was in dispute, one thing wasn't; it truly was detestable.

He had been riding through it for almost a week and, as he'd already thought to himself, it had been nice, at first, to be out of the rain.

To begin with he was fascinated by all the life – so much of it was new to him, or variations on the theme of the northern lands he knew so well. Plants and birds, their colours brighter, scents sweeter, calls louder and more musical all around. But the lands had changed from grey and hard to green and then to sere in a matter of days and beneath the hooves of his poor baldy horse, the earth became dust, became sand and the mountains softened into hills. Circlets of habitation crowned their tops, the dwelling places of villagers arranged in rings to look out over the undulating sandscape.

The sky was empty of everything except the burnished blue of its heat, the white glare of a strange, intense sun.

The birds had gone. The plants diminished, reduced to dry, brittle shards and the occasional hardy, spiky shrub, but everywhere there was sound. The buzz of insects, the hush of drifting sand, the murmur of the environment. At night the air was dry, and cold, laying its freezing fingers on his leather coat and frosting all the way through to his skin. How could it be, blistering heat in the day and this sand-frost at night? The tink, pink of stones protesting as they cooled was a constant song in the darkness.

How could Gollum, clad only in rags around his waist, tolerate these extremes of temperature?

That was easily answered, of course; his long, long association with a ring of power.

Presently Aragorn was tracking, not following, not even wanting to catch up with his quarry. Second-nature to him; he had spent long, hard years in the wilderness doing something like this every day to survive, to protect others. So he believed he was about three or four days behind Gollum but without any clear idea what the creature was doing this far south.

He sighed and stretched and lit a pipe of weed.

One thing about these vast, empty plains of sand. It gave him a chance to reflect, to remember, to concentrate on who he really was.

It was too easy, amongst other people, to forget. He had been brought up in Rivendell as Estel, a human amongst elves and half-elves, and then one day Elrond, to whom he had looked as a father, took him aside and told him who he really was: Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Isildur's heir…

Quite a lot to take in, all told. Strider, they called him in the wild lands around Rivendell and out towards Bree, and other names less pleasant. He had ridden in Gondor under an assumed name, with the Rohirrim of Rohan under another.

But here… here, in the cold, dark night of the desert, here he knew himself at last, he found his own integrity, identity in the purity of the chase.

He had been three days in the hard desert when he decided to temporarily abandon the search. There had been no trace of Gollum for days now, and he began to think the creature had not been able to abide the harsh conditions after all. Gollum was devious, but not stupid; the deserts of the south would be as deadly for him as they could be for Aragorn. And it would never have survived so long, had it lacked intelligence. Yet to come thus far suggested the creature had been trying to lead him to his death in the desert.

That being so, there was no point his struggling out here and suffering, or making poor Baldy Horse suffer, and so he headed east now towards the road and the high hills with their ringed villages. Disputed territory or not, there were people here, and they spoke a strange, wild tongue, a rough language as harsh as their environment. A few, a scant few, had Westron, and Aragorn inserted himself amongst the people gently and politely and after he had listened for a few hours, he knew the speech, or at least knew one like enough to it, and when he ventured a greeting or two in the dusty market place, he was answered with curiosity, yes, but his tale – of being a traveller long gone from the lands – was accepted with no more than a nod and a shrug.

The place, he discovered, was called Market Town, and it was just south of Main Town… several villages north, and south, were connected to Market Town by means of the Narrow Road, which had the advantage of not being the Desert Road. The people of the region kept open the Narrow Road for travellers, he heard, but the Desert Road two days to the east was warded and tended by the southern races.

'And some say we should ally with them,' he heard. 'But most say not. Most say Gondor will remember us, one day, and we should be true until then. That is what our Leaderess wants, and we follow her.'

This last was said almost belligerently as they looked him over, as if they expected him to argue, and he wondered if his appearance was to blame; he had often returned to Rivendell to be accused of looking more like a wild man than the heir to the throne of Gondor, and while his clothes were good, they were shabby with travel stains.

Still, what they said interested him deeply; if he were to beat the odds and claim his title, this little settlement, the smatter of dry, dusty villages with their dry, dusty villagers would be his to bring under his care one day, perhaps. It might be worth finding out a little more about them. Aside from their somewhat unimaginative way of naming their settlements, their unlovely language, the dust all over them, their insistent support of their Leaderess (again, an unimaginative, ugly title), they were honest in their dealings with him, seemed to be kind to their children and animals, more than one asking what had happened to Baldy Horse that he had lost his mane. Another point in their favour – the local inns served a wickedly good ale to cut through all that dry air.

He bought provisions at Market Town, intrigued by some of the foodstuffs on display. One stall had a strange fruit on offer; it had a tough, hard rind but once cut open, he was told, it opened out to the sweetest flesh within. It was expensive – not prohibitively so for him, but he had the sense that if he bought it he would bring suspicion down on himself for looking like a vagabond but carrying wealth enough to squander on a taste of unfamiliar fruit, one of which alone cost more than a bushel of apples. He made his face look crestfallen at the price, and moved on.

Once he'd uncovered all the wonders of Market Town (its market, two inns, and public water pump and horse trough), he headed north for Main Town a half day on. It, too, had its market, a smaller affair in the centre of the town. It did, however, boast two municipal buildings – the palace and the council chambers, which made it the closest thing to a capitol the region had. Street talk suggested there was a low-key power struggle going on, one that had been rumbling for a while now, with the Leaderess being encouraged to let her brother take over the strains of leadership, she being young and yet already widowed. There was some vote or other coming up in the next few days, and many people were travelling to Main Town to be there to hear the result of it.

The extra crowds would no doubt provide cover for his investigations, but now he was back amongst people he was obscurely eager to escape them again. Once Baldy Horse had been watered and fed and rested, he set off again on the Narrow Road north.

Just out of the town there was a bridge that crossed a winding, empty hollow that twined and twisted across the land, the very bottoms of it holding occasional traces of green, the rest of it a mosaic of cracked mud; a river bed, haunted by the hope of resurrection. Perhaps this land had a rainy season, perhaps the hills acted as a watershed for the wet coming in from the far western sea. But there was so much land to cross first, he feared any rainfall would be rare.

Yet there must be some; the little towns and villages were established settlements, and though water was expensive, there were crops growing in little cultivated fields.

Northwards he went, passing by the Low Inn and its village, although the landlord called out to him that a storm was coming, he might not make it to High Village before it hit and best be under shelter by then.

Aragorn thanked him, but the inn already looked crowded and he decided to press on.

The road narrowed further and rose swiftly through the desiccated landscape, winding around the hill. At one turn he caught a glimpse of another rider on the trail – no, a pair of riders, one – he presumed it to be a woman – swathed in a long riding cloak with her hair covered by the hood, and the other dressed differently to local style… in fact, the man's clothes and bearing on his horse marked him out to Aragorn as a man of Rohan, perhaps even one of the Rohirrim.

The pair was some way ahead, too far for him to comfortably ride up and offer greetings and companionship on the road, as seemed to be the way with travellers here. The two appeared to be moving more quickly than he in any case – Baldy Horse was a very long way from home, further even than a rider of Rohan, and Aragorn was loath to hurry him unless he had to – so he assumed they would get to the inn at the top of the pass first. He could introduce himself there, amongst the other company.

Yet it struck him as odd, he who had long ago learned to notice such things, that while all the world was heading to Main Town and the vote, these two, like him, were heading away from it. No mystery if the lady was of Rohan too, of course… but her cloak was of the local style.

Well, while he liked a good puzzle, it wasn't his puzzle and he had a mystery of his own to solve… where had that wretched Gollum disappeared to?

This would be better country for the creature to travel across than the wastes of the desert; cover, shelter, some vegetation meaning some water and prey… many years of watching had given Aragorn an uncomfortable insight into what constituted prey for Gollum… so he had better watch his back and sharpen his senses and listen out for any rumour that could lead him back to the trail.

At the next turn of the track he saw the woman ahead turn on her horse and look back; he must be spotted now, although he didn't acknowledge being seen. She had turned again and leaned to her travelling companion with such apparent urgency that he could only assume she was worried about being followed.

On more open ground he would have hailed them and let his goodwill be known. But the narrowness of the trail and roughness of the terrain meant an open approach might not be possible, and if the lady were worried, and her escort was a Rohir, it would be foolish indeed to attempt it; drawn swords would be probable and drawn blood possible before any explanation could be given.

So Aragorn kept to his pace and rode on.

Another turn ahead, and the couple were out of sight. He assumed they had ridden on in haste, and thought no more of it until, a little way ahead, he saw the tracks of their horses divert from the main scuffle of prints to the left; the two had turned off the trail heading into the thick scrub… perhaps they were following a track they knew. Or were getting out of sight of him. Or maybe were planning an ambush, although they seemed unlikely candidates for such villainy.

But for the next few miles he watched his back, just in case.

Overhead, the sky began to lose its depth of blue and began to take on a strange green tint which did not bode well. Remembering the innkeeper's storm-warning, Aragorn urged Baldy Horse to a slightly more eager walk and pressed on up the trail, thoughts of Gollum and ambush not forgotten, but pushed aside as being of less importance at the moment.

An hour on, the sky had become purple and green and he saw the scatter of houses ahead with relief. The inn was easily located and he handed over his reins to a very small boy who looked at him and Baldy Horse with some disgust.

'My horse is a hero,' Aragorn said in Westron, repeating it in what passed for the local dialect when there was no sense of understanding from the child. 'He tried to save his rider from the flames but he was burned.'

'A good horse, then. I will tend him well, master.'

'See that you do. Rub him down properly, have a care for his neck.'

Inside, the inn looked clean enough. It being late afternoon, only a few locals were sitting over ale and talking, mostly old men minding their own business and putting their world to rights from the comfort of their corner. It would do for a night, somewhere to ride out the promised storm. He secured a room and ordered food, taking a tankard of ale outside to sit and watch the skies.

'Not an hour and the storm falls, master,' the innkeeper told him in Westron. 'You are well come.'

He found a bench near the door, stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles, sighing as he buried himself in the froth of the ale. Ah, yes. That was what a man needed after a long, dusty ride…

He sat back and relaxed, noting, but not paying attention to, the group of three men playing dice at the table near the door. They looked better dressed than the majority of locals, and held growled conversations he could almost, but not quite, hear.

A little breeze arrived, picking up bits of dried leaf and litter and swirling them around in tiny little dust-devils. He drained his tankard as he watched the play of the dust in the heat and waved his mug, hoping a passing pot-boy would save him from having to go back inside just yet.

But it was the little horse-boy who arrived to take his tankard.

'Are you pot-boy, too?'

'I am all work needs doing, I do it, master. Another?'

'Yes, another.'

When it happened, it did so very quickly. The boy appeared with his ale, and refills for the other table, at the same time that the couple he'd passed on the trail rode in. The man – wearing the uniform, but not the armour of the Rohirrim – swung down from the saddle and shouted for attention before helping the woman dismount. Her hood fell back, and the pot-and-horse-boy stared, gaped, lost all idea of where his feet were going, and would have stumbled over Aragorn's legs and pitched the ale all over the table had he not reached out to steady him. The ale lurched in the tankards and slopped over the tops, but the lad was spared a fall, at least.

'Easy, my friend! She is very pretty, yes, but worth falling for?' Aragorn said easily, then noticed the men whose ale had almost spilled.

Two had risen from their seats and, fists clenched, looked ready to murder the poor pot-boy.

'My fault,' Aragorn said in Westron, making placating gestures with his hands. 'Let me make amends.'

He took the tankards from the boy's unresisting hands and set three down on the table for the men, took his own, and gently pushed the lad towards the newcomers.

'There is a fine pair of horses for you to settle. Go, I will make all right.'

The woman was watching him as if not sure whether he was rescue or danger, so he stood aside until the horses were led away and her escort was free to lead her into the inn before himself following.

The innkeeper was bowing to the new arrivals, particularly the woman, as if she was someone very important and it was a moment before Aragorn found himself able to get the man's attention.

'My fault,' he began. 'But I made your pot-boy spill the ale… three more, I will pay, for the men outside…'

The men outside were now suddenly inside and took up places at a table near the door. The woman stared at them, her eyes wide, and the man of Rohan shifted his coat so that his sword could be seen at his side.

'Ah, it is a silly boy, a most stupid boy! I am sorry, master…'

'It was not his fault,' Aragorn insisted.

'He is a good boy with horses. His mother is dead of the fire-lung and his aunt and uncle struggling to keep him. He works a week here then lives a week with them.'

'It is a harsh land.'

'True. But we love it. It is our land.'

Aragorn paid for more ale and was relieved when the men accepted them with no more than a scowl. The fact was, they had done well; only a little ale had been lost from each and now these had been bought for them. To have protested further would have been ill-mannered, churlish, and so they subsided.

From somewhere behind the bar a maidservant appeared and dipped a curtsey to the woman who followed her up the stars. The eyes of the three men and the Rider of Rohan all followed her out of the room, the tensions in the room building, palpable.

The boy came in, faltered when he saw the men, and hurried to the innkeeper who shook his head at the lad's fearful expression.

'Are all the horses settled?'

'Aye, and they are.'

'Good. Go up and help the girl with the shutters to the guest rooms.' The innkeeper turned to address the room. 'The storm is nigh. If you have homes to go to, now is the time. Or shelter here with us.'

He repeated the message again in slightly poor Westron, but the message was clear, and equally clear was the fact that nobody seemed to want to brave the elements. From the lack of surprise from the elders in the corner, it wasn't exactly a rare event.

'Do storms come often?' Aragorn asked.

'Aye, can be two or three a week in the season. Then none until after the rains. This is early for them, second this month. Will be more, soon.' He slapped his hand to his head. 'You asked for food and I have the girl doing the shutters! Master, I am a fool…'

'I can wait for food. Make the house safe first.'

Still, the food did arrive soon, and not long after it, the man of Rohan saw fit to join him at his table.

Aragorn looked at him, hiding his surprise, and lifted his tankard.

'Westu hal!' he said, and was rewarded by a look of astonishment.

He continued in the language of Rohan, a sonorous, rolling tongue that had come easy to him when he first learned it and which had stayed with him since.

'I have travelled in your lands and have even ridden amongst the Rohirrim, once. You are far from home.'

'As are you, it would seem. I am Frambold of the West March.'

'They call me Strider. My home is indeed far from here. I dwell in the House of Elrond of Rivendell.'

'On the road earlier. My lady thought you were following her. She meant no offence by her caution.'

'Has she reason to fear she is followed, Frambold West-March?'

'Yes. I cannot say more without her consent, but you are not our enemy, I think. You were kind to the pot-boy, she remarked on it.'

'There is enough of unkindness, these days, without adding to it. The boy was busy staring at the lady and lost his balance. I think he is a little young to have such interest…'

'So you do not know who she is?'

Aragorn shook his head.

'I can tell you this much at least, since all here know it. The reason the boy was staring – that we feared someone was following – she is their Leaderess.'

Aragorn turned his attention to the plate in front of him, picking at the bread and cheese and meat.

'Those three men… the ones who were outside… they are most interested in our conversation. And your lady is on her way down the stairs.'

'They do not know my tongue, only a smattering of the common words and their own.'

Frambold got to his feet at once and went to where the woman was hesitating at the foot of the stairs. They exchanged a few words, her face anxious, but then nodded and gestured and sat down at her table. One of the old men from the corner table got to his feet and shuffled over to stop a few feet away and bow before saying something to her in the rough, harsh tongue. Her reply was gracious and, with a look almost of bravado at the table with the three men, invited him to sit. In turn, with much hat-wringing, he gestured the woman to go with him to the corner table and join his cronies. A genteel nod of the head and she accepted the invitation, rising to her feet and allowing Frambold to take her across. On the way she talked to him in rapid, low Rohirric, and Aragorn raised an eyebrow, hearing her so fluent in the tongue.

Frambold came back to him.

'I may tell you all and hope we may trust you, she says…'

He broke off as with a bang and a clatter, the heavy wooden shutters were slammed closed and fastened against the oncoming storm. The inn grew dark, darker, darkest as each window in turn was covered. The maidservant passed through, setting lamps on the tables, giving a golden, sporadic glow to the room that didn't disperse the gloom of the corners. The landlord bustled through the main room and barred and bolted the outer door.

Finally, lowering his voice, the Rohir continued.

'She is in fear of her life and I am the only help she has. I, and the goodwill of her people.'

'Is she in danger here?' Aragorn asked.

'No, not here in this inn, not tonight. It is to be hoped the presence of the elders will protect her tonight. But… I think her story is a sad story. My cousin and her husband were friends, this is how I came to be a part of the tale. Her husband is dead. She is alone, but for her brother and he believes he knows better than she how to run things…'

Frambold paused to beckon the innkeeper.

'Ale, food, please,' he said in adequate Westron. 'And for herself, same.'

'In Main Town, I heard they were having a vote soon… four days, I think they said?'

'Yes. That's one reason she's here. She… her life has been threatened if she refuses to ally with the southern folks. She wrote to my uncle, and he sent me to bring her to Rohan where there is a safe home for her. The lady does not want to leave, but she can see no way out of this, except to die.'

'And those three?'

'Supporters of her brother, here to see she leaves the country before the vote. If she returns to Main Town and the vote goes through, she will be killed.'

Aragorn exhaled heavily.

'Can nothing be done?'

'I do not know the land, its politics. We have no time for such things in Rohan. I am sent to bring her safe away, and she does not want to go.' He glanced across to where the woman was nodding at something one of the old men was saying. 'She will want to leave even less after this.'

'But you will do your task?'

'I find… I find I will do what she bids me. If that is to ride back to the town with her, then I shall do it.'

Outside, the wind shuddered suddenly against the walls of the inn. It moaned like a haunting and all the candles danced in the lanterns.

'There has to be another course of action. Let me think.'

Frambold stared at him.

'Why? Why does it matter to you?'

Aragorn shrugged. After all, he could hardly say, one day, I may be High King of Gondor and, yes, then I will remember all the little places that called for their King to help them when the Steward forgot.

'She was glad that I was kind to the pot-boy. That sounds like the sort of leader we need in these times.'

'You think there is trouble coming?'

'Undoubtedly. And the darkness to the east will be looking for allies to the south… these southern peoples, I hear little good of them.'

The wind gibbered and the shutters rattled and Framborn's food arrived. He ate in silence, trying to ignore the eyes on him from the three men.

'I do not know why they are so watchful. It is not as if we can leave in the night.'

'What would they do, I wonder, if they thought you and the lady had made a run for it? Would they let you go and trust to the storm to ensnare you? Or chase after with murderous intent and let the desert hide the bodies?'

'They could try! They are villains and bullies, used to using their swagger and loudness to oppress. I have fought with the Rohirrim, and I am a match for any!'

'I have my own errand I have already deferred. Still, I would come with you back to town, if it would help. I have sword and knife and bow. But I have something far more deadly than any of those…'

'And what might that be?'

'I have a pen.'

A hiss as of a thousand angry snakes as the swirling winds lifted the desert and cast it against the inn.

'What do you mean, you have a pen?'

'Consider. She is the leader, she controls the country. What if… what if letters of intent were lodged in all the centres of learning and justice in Middle-Earth? What if your lady there wrote to the Steward in Gondor, to Elrond in Rivendell, to Théoden King? Even to Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth? What if she said she utterly rejects the notion of alliance with the south and that, in the event of her death, she cedes ownership of her territories in their entirety to Gondor's rule? What if she said, in the letter, that she has reason to fear for her… health, and that if she goes missing for more than a month, then her death is to be assumed and her lands ceded? What effect would that have on her safety?'

The storm battered and blasted and brayed against the inn. Frambold thought, and after he had considered the matter for a few minutes, he began to smile.

'It would do no good to her brother then to have her dead, would it?' the Rohir said. 'But who could write such a letter?'

'I told you before.' Aragorn's smile was wickedly bright. 'I have a pen.'

While the storm raged and the desert tried to gust and howl its way into the inn, Aragorn drafted the letter.

Frambold left him to work and joined the woman in the corner with the old men. He spoke softly in Rohirric to her and she queried, questioned as if she did not quite grasp… but then it seemed she had it at last, for she looked across at Aragorn and quickly away again before her brother's men could notice.

Suddenly Frambold raised his voice in song, but after one refrain of the 'Song of the Sons of the Wold', he fitted his own words to the ancient tune, words just for Aragorn's understanding.

'_After talking to these good men_

_She refuses to leave them to her brother_

_So she bids you, write_

_And leave space for this: Three men to sign_

_Three old men who support her still_

_And that will make it right_

_And where she too can fix her name_

_For this she gives her thanks…'_

Aragorn smiled and wrote the document in Sindarin, in Rohirric, in the language of Gondor and in Westron. He left space for the woman to copy the words in her own dialect, and he made six copies, and the evening drew on and became night.

Two of the three men retired upstairs and the last sat, nodding and starting up when the wind yowled particularly loudly and pelted an especially large load of sand at the shutters.

Thus Aragorn was able to pass the documents to Framborn to take to the woman to complete, for her old men to sign and to bring back to him, all unseen.

'I will take to Rohan,' Framborn said. 'It is my home.'

'But if they learn of this, they will expect that. They will not expect me to carry the message. I am riding North, I can be in Gondor in less than a week. Your friend should keep a copy for herself and lodge one with her council. She should announce ahead of the vote that she has done this.' Aragorn glanced up into Framborn's eyes. 'You should take a personal message to your uncle from her, explaining why she chooses to stay. It should be in my hand, for I think they have noticed I have been writing… I will see your king hears the will of this woman.'

The storm eased around midnight, and the man still nodded and drifted. Aragorn took the finished, signed messages and slid them into the side of his boot, but shook his head when Framborn suggested he come over and speak to the woman.

'No, it is better if she is not seen with me. Then she can deny all knowledge of me, should she need to.'

Aragorn got up to take the empties back to the bar. The innkeeper, dozing in a chair, woke with a jump.

'You have a bed, good master. Will you not go to it?'

'I do not think any of us will, not while the storm is on us. Is it over, now?'

'No. We are under its still heart. It will wake again, soon.'

'Do you have in the village, a magister or such? Good men of the place, honoured citizens?'

'Aye, we have many good souls here!' The innkeeper sounded ready to be affronted.

'Peace, good friend. The lady in the corner, you know her?'

'I do indeed. She honours us here.'

'Then have the village honour her. Have some, or all, escort her, not simply down the hill but all the way home. Do you understand?' Aragorn glanced at the sleeping watchman. 'All the way home. She has to be there for the vote.'

'I understand you. Now will you please go to your bed?'

The storm riffled the shutters lightly, then hurtled against the inn; the eye of the storm had passed over.

'I do not think there would be much point.'

Morning came unheeded, for the storm still ranted around the inn and it was late before the winds abated enough for the landlord to risk opening the smallest of the windows to glimpse out. A strange, dim light drifted in, causing the woman to stir where she had fallen asleep on the settle, a folded jacket from one of her elderly admirers under her head and her cloak over her. Frambold slept, too, trusting Aragorn to keep guard over the watchman.

Now Aragorn stretched and went to look out on the day. The sky was heavy, orange, full of the swirl of dust and sand.

'It will be over by noon. Then we will have to dig out the pass.' The landlord shrugged. 'There will be no journeys today except about the village.'

The woman was not left alone. One of the old men went back to his house, and within a very short while was replaced by a dozen more, come to see the lady. And so it went, through the day. One group would arrive, another leave, and the three men watched with frowns and scowls as she was surrounded with well-wishers.

That night, Aragorn slept in the bed in his room, but he kept his boots on and his knife under his pillow, and in the morning he rose early to news that the woman had risen earlier, and had gone, with half the population walking with her down to Low Village. He settled his bill and ruffled the horse-boy's hair with a smile and rode off down towards Foothills, the village to the north of the hills.

The air was sultry now, the sky purple and ominous, but he reached his next inn safely, just before another sandstorm hit. He hoped Framborn and the woman had made it to shelter, that the vote would go ahead and that her announcement would buy her a little more time.

A three-day detour took him to Gondor and he delivered the first two letters with relief, one to the Steward and one to send on to Dol Amroth and Prince Imrahil, then headed back towards Osgiliath and northwards.

On the edges of the Dead Marshes, he spotted his original quarry, the creature Gollum hissing and gloating as he fished for his supper. In a heartbeat Aragorn had him, a vicious, wriggling, biting, kicking, strangling armful of teeth and death… it took far too long to subdue and bind the creature, and but for Baldy Horse hauling back and kneecapping Gollum with a neatly-judged hoof, the struggle would have taken even longer.

At the end of it he was exhausted.

Exhausted, but victorious.

Gollum looked at him with malevolent eyes, not understanding why the man, bleeding and bitten and bruised, had thrown his head back and was laughing and laughing and laughing…

It had begun to rain again.


End file.
